The Woman of Progressive Intellect, 1914

"The Woman of Progressive Intellect (Intellectural), 1914," by August Sander If it were not for her enlightened eyes, She’d be the witch that intellect denies Has ever walked the earth: the sunken jaw, The blunt chin like a claw-toothed hammer’s claw, The stubbed and crooking finger, and the skin As stained and crinkly as her crinoline, Would make a loving grandchild run away. It takes another kind of love to see How spirit, in its tactical withdrawal From aging outworks that are doomed to fall, Consents to the bewitching of its shell As long as it can hold the citadel Where the progressive intellect has spent A lifetime plotting the enlightenment The backward and the beautiful dismiss As mind’s revenge for its unloveliness.